


Down Once More

by wickedblackbird



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:45:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedblackbird/pseuds/wickedblackbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were serpents crawling along at the edges of his vision. He could see them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt:
> 
> Through some means or another, Loki finds himself in a great deal of trouble. Could be a spell backfires, he's at another villain's/a particularly angry hero's mercy, he gazes upon Secrets-Man-Was-Not-Meant-To-Know™, Odin subjects him to a fancy new punishment...whatever happens, it's rather unpleasant and traumatic to the point that the voice of reason keeping Loki in touch with reality decides it's about time for vacation, packs its bags, and strolls right on out of there.
> 
> Whether he gets rescued or escapes only to be discovered by someone else is your call, but another character finds him. And Loki is practically babbling about events that never happened, telling stories everyone else knows aren't true, caught somewhere between giddy and terrified and terribly ill.
> 
> But unsettling as all out, anyway.
> 
> Can be hurt/comfort or just focusing on Loki's madness as you prefer. The person (or people) who finds him can be anyone.

There were serpents crawling along at the edges of his vision. He could see them. Only from the sides, though, because they were fast. If they saw him move his head, they would slip and slither into the shadows before he could see their exact position. But he knew they were there, waiting for him to fall asleep. So, he stayed as still as possible, and watched them from the corners of his eyes.

Maybe if he kept watching, they'd be afraid to come too close.

It worked to a certain extent. They stayed slithering just out of reach. But, he could hear them hissing, feel displaced air as they flitted their tongues out to taste his fear. It was maddening. He could not see all of them at once - they were to all sides. And the hissing, slithering, shifting sounds made his every muscle tighten in apprehension.

He could not move to chase them away or fight them off, either. His body felt both heavy and light at the same time, and he was fairly certain he couldn't shift if he tried. Perhaps his bones were coated with lead. That would explain the weight. Even breathing was a bit of a challenge, his ribs compressed and tight as though Mjölnir lay upon them.

Something brushed his cheek - too close, too close - and Loki rolled his head to the side to see it. The motion was too slow, it took too long. The snakes were safely hidden by the time he could see. But their tracks were there in the dust. He could see the trails their sinuous bodies had made as they slithered across the rocky floor.

They were there. Waiting.

With great difficulty, he managed to look back at the ceiling. Water beaded on the cold, rough ceiling and made him terribly aware of how dry his mouth was. A single drop of that water would be perfection.

But the snakes were coming back - gliding and wriggling into his small cell. But they stayed just to the sides. As long as he could see them, he was safe.

Then, as suddenly as though doused with water, the light disappeared. 

The hissing continued in the dark, and Loki began to scream.


	2. Chapter 2

The dark dragged on and on. It could have been days or weeks. It could have been centuries. All Loki knew was that it was dark, pitch black like the very bowels of the earth.

When the snakes had first drawn near, he had screamed himself hoarse. The noise had kept them at bay at first. Then, his voice had deserted him - sputtering out and leaving his throat raw and empty in its wake. The snakes had quickly been on him. Their teeth and their tongues and the slithering, crawling, sliding, awful weight of them on his skin had set him back to screaming silently into the black.

And then, as abruptly as they had come, the snakes had been gone - disappearing back into the shadows from whence they came. They left him alone for long periods of time, flinching and tense as he waited for the hissing and sliding to return. They were _there_. He knew they were. They were waiting for him to sleep.

He would not sleep.

In the heavy silence, he waited, the darkness pressing in on all sides. Sometimes, he thought he saw and heard shapes in the heavy gloom, but they faded away before he could recognize them.

Something dripped from above him, landing cold and stinging in his eyes. He jerked away, struggling weakly, and was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of the fact that his limbs were chained fast to the hard floor. Another drop landed on his face, sliding coolly down his temple, and a terrified whimper escaped Loki's mouth.

He could not see! Without his sight, he knew not what new horror was being visited up him. He had a sudden, terrible image of a figure standing above him, holding one of the serpents and squeezing the venom from its outstretched fangs into his eyes.

A small, reasonable part of him remembered the water beading on the ceiling, and for a moment it calmed him. But, again the liquid fell, and again it stung his eyes, and he struggled against it. The dripping continued intermittently, stopping altogether sometimes and others coming in steady streams. He was never ready.

And, he could hear the hissing again. The snakes were coming back.

"I'm sorry," he rasped into the dark. Nearly sobbing now. "Please, please. I'm sorry. Just stop."

Loki could not even remember what it was he was apologizing for, nor to whom. But he knew that he must have done something terrible to merit this treatment. He had a vague memory of anger and pain, and something sharp and jagged before he had been flung into the dark with the serpents.

He could feel them coming closer. They were larger this time, he was sure of it.

"Please!" he tried again. "Please, at least give me some light!"

And then the snakes were upon him.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the sound that made the dungeon disturbing. Thor had been in plenty of dark, damp caverns before, but they were generally simply full of echoes of dripping water and his own footsteps. Sometimes the occasional squeaking and rustling of bats or mice. Here, however... Here, the sound made his blood run cold.

It seemed to bubble up out of the dark until it surrounded him on all sides - a terrible, gibbering laughter that bordered on a sob. It would rise to an awful pitch, sharp and loud in his ears, and go suddenly silent. The silence itself was almost worse. Then, it would start again. Quietly at first and then following the same pattern.

Raising his torch even higher in a futile attempt to battle the shadows, Thor swallowed down his nausea and continued ever further down. The lowest cell, Heimdall had said. The gatekeeper had not told him who was down here, nor why. He had merely nodded as Thor stepped from the Bifrost, home after years in Midgard, and told him that someone was in dire need of aid.

He was not sure he wanted to know what was in that cell.

After a seeming eternity, he came to the end of the tunnel. The walls around him were slick and damp with the cold, the water running down into the shifting sand at his feet. The laughing was reverberating all around him, loud and clamouring in his head. He swung open the door, and the noise came to a stop.

Ducking through the small opening, Thor found himself in a small, dark cell. There was a figure, emaciated and ghastly as a skeleton chained in the middle of the floor. His stomach turned as he realized it was Loki.

He hurried forward, then stopped as Loki attempted to cringe away from his torch, blinking and squinting in the light. How long had he been down here? Thor planted the torch firmly in the sand behind him, then carefully approached his brother.

The trickster's eyes were staring seemingly sightlessly at the ceiling, and his thin chest was heaving as his wheezes rustled in and out. Bruising and dried blood were visible around his wrists and ankles where he had fought his chains.

"Brother?" he breathed, afraid to speak above a whisper.

A bit of focus seemed to come to Loki's face, and his eyes flickered over to look at Thor. He started to giggle helplessly.

"I had not thought they would send you with the serpents," he rasped between chuckles, and then started to sob.


End file.
